Maranatha Grace Church

Book of Romans, an outline:

Doctrinal, Ch. 1—8

 Introduction, 1:1-17

 The Sin of Man, 1:18 --- 3:20 

 Justification of the Sinner, 3:21 --- 5:21

 Sanctification of the Believer, 6:1 --- 8:39

Dispensational (the Case of Israel), Ch. 9 --- 11

 God’s Past Purpose for Israel, 9:1-33

 God’s Present Purpose for Israel, 10:1-21

 God’s Future Purpose for Israel, 11:1-36

Practical (Duties and Privileges of the Believer), Ch.  12 --- 16

 The Christian’s Service, 12:1 --- 13:14

 Christian Service and Questionable Things, 14:1 --- 15:3

 Christian Service and God’s Worldwide Glory, 15:4 --- 13

 Christian Service and Fellowship, 15:14 --- 16:27

 ( Unger’s Bible Handbook )

Hello:

Book of Romans Challenge – Day 1– Romans 1  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. ¹⁷ For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last,^[e] just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”^[f] (Romans 1:16-17)

Some Christians are more comfortable talking about a big discount sale than talking about the gospel. Why is that so? Because they have not experienced the power of God. Preaching the Gospel without the Holly Spirit is indeed an impossible task. Jesus told his disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the Father, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).”

They waited, they were baptized in the Holy Spirit, they proclaimed the Gospel boldly, and they won the old world for Christ. If you feel that you are ashamed of the gospel, if you don’t feel a burden for lost souls, check your life in the light of the truth of the Bible. Ask the Lord to fill you and to empower you with the power of the Spirit. Your life will be greatly changed.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Romans Challenge – Day 2 – Romans 2  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

⁵ But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. ⁶ God “will repay each person according to what they have done.”^{[a] 7} To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. ⁸ But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. ⁹ There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; ¹⁰ but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. ¹¹ For God does not show favoritism. (Romans 2:5-11)

The first time we see the word favoritism in the New Testament is in Acts 10:34-35, “³⁴ Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism ³⁵ but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.” Through the encounter with a gentile, Cornelius, Apostle Peter realized that God goodness is open to the whole humanity.  

Paul repeated the same thing in Romans 2:11, “For God does not show favoritism,” to show that God is a just God. Some people have problem with petition prayers because they confuse favor with favoritism. For natural men, life is a zero sum game, if one wins, another needs to lose. But this is not so with God, he is a God of abundance.

God can pour out his favor on all of us at once without the necessity for someone to lose anything. “Glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile (v. 10).” There is more than enough food in the world to feed comfortably every person on earth. We can boldly pray Jesus’s prayer saying to God, “Give us this day our daily bread.”

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Romans Challenge – Day 3 – Romans 3  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

²¹ But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. ²² This righteousness is given through faith in^[h] Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. ²⁵ God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement,^[i] through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— ²⁶ he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:21-26)

Martin Luther, the great Protestant Reformer, wrote the following commendation of this epistle. "[Romans] is worthy not only that every Christian should know it word for word, by heart, but occupy himself with it every day, as the daily bread of the soul. It can never be read or pondered too much, and the more it is dealt with the more precious it becomes, and the better it tastes. 

My hope is that we all develop this great taste for the study of the book of Romans. The first three chapters of the book paint a very bleak portrait of the human condition. “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God (v. 10-11).  The true condition of the human heart is exposed.

Romans 3:23 is the view of mankind from God’s perspective, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (v. 23).” Our goodness doesn’t measure up to God’s standard. We are all sinners. However, right after this bad diagnostic of the human heart comes the good news:  “and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus (v. 24).”

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Romans Challenge – Day 4 – Romans 4  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

¹⁶ Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. ¹⁷ As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.”^[c] He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not. (Romans 4:16-17)

I love to listen to our children singing with great joy the Father Abraham song:

Father Abraham had many sons
Many sons had Father Abraham
I am one of them and so are you
So let's all praise the Lord.
Right arm, left arm, right foot, left foot,
Chin up, turn around, sit down!

Anyone who understands the promises of the Lord to Abraham should burst into a song of joy and thanksgiving when they read verses such as Romans 4:16-17 making of us heirs of that great patriarch.  There are great spirituals and materials blessings associated with that relationship. We can say with the Psalmist:

¹ Praise the Lord, my soul;
 all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
² Praise the Lord, my soul,
 and forget not all his benefits—
³ who forgives all your sins
 and heals all your diseases,
⁴ who redeems your life from the pit
 and crowns you with love and compassion,
⁵ who satisfies your desires with good things
 so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

May the Lord richly bless you!

 (Psalms 103:1-5)

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Romans Challenge – Day 5 – Romans 5  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

¹⁸ Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. ¹⁹ For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

²⁰ The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, ²¹ so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 5:18-21)

We are living in very difficult time. Day after day the world’s situation seems to be getting worst, murders, mass killings, and terrorism are becoming daily events. What should make out of this moment in history? We cannot lose hope as those difficult events would push us to do. We know that God is sovereign, he is in control of the whole universe, and he is in control of our lives. In moments such as these, we need to remember that light will always overcome darkness, good will always triumph over evil.  God’s word gives us the reason to always stay hopeful, “Where sin increase, grace increased all the more.”

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Romans Challenge – Day 6 – Romans 6  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? ² By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? ³ Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. (Romans 6:1-4)

In 1 Corinthians 11:26 regarding the Lord’s Super, we read, “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” When we participate in the Lord Super, we become Evangelists for the moment, proclaiming to ourselves and to all around us that Jesus died for us, he was raised from the dead, he ascended to heaven, and he will return.

Our baptism is a solemn act of Evangelism. Openly and publically we reenact the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.  In our baptism, we died as Jesus died, buried as Jesus was buried, and raised from the dead just as Jesus was raised from the dead, so we too may live in a new life. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:^[a] The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Corinthians 5:17)”

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Romans Challenge – Day 7– Romans 7  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

⁴ So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. ⁵ For when we were in the realm of the flesh,^[a] the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. ⁶ But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code. (Romans 7:4-6)

In US Law it is said, “Ignorantia juris non excusat”, “ignorance of the law does not excuse”. Is that fair? In Haiti, my friends and I used to scorn that same slogan in French, “Nul n'est censé ignorer la loi,” repeated all the times by the government.  We argued that it was wrong, in a country with so many people who did not how to read, to expect the population to know all the laws published in Le Moniteur, the official newspaper of the Haitian government. Were we right to think that way?

Once the Law was given to the people of Israel, every single Israelite was bounded by the Law. Even the other nations of the earth, knowing it or not were bounded by the Law. Ignorance of the law does not excuse, otherwise any person could violate the law, or do something terribly wrong then get away from justice just by claiming that they did not know the law. Such an environment would be a total chaos. So, it is right to accept the principle that “Nul n’est cense ignorer la loi.”

But the question is “which law?” The law of love. ^“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’^{[a] 31} The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^[b] There is no commandment greater than these (Mark 12:30-31).” “Love does no wrong to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the Law (Romans 13:10).”

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Romans Challenge – Day 8– Romans 8  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

²⁶ In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. ²⁷ And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

²⁸ And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who^[i] have been called according to his purpose. ²⁹ For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. ³⁰ And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. (Romans 8:26-30)

Romans 8 is one of the chapters of the Bible that I believe every Christian should strive  to know by heart. In this chapter we learn about the all sufficient grace of God in our lives. We can live confident lives, just like Paul said, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, ² because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you^[a] free from the law of sin and death (v. 1)”

One time a Brother from the church told me that he doesn’t how to pray. I said, in fact no one really knows how to pray perfectly, since the word of God says, “We do not know what we ought to pray for (v. 26).” But pray we must, because the Holy Spirit needs our broken prayers to perfect them on our behalf. He takes our selfish prayers, our feeble prayers, even our resentful prayers and change them for us.

Our own prayers are like personal recording on a simple cassette tape, the Holy Spirit praying in our behalf is like a high tech studio production. Our prayers are filtered, equalized, amplified, and then shoot through the universe to be instantly delivered to the heavenly court. By then our prayers are just beautiful music to the ear of the Lord.  I love you Lord, I lift my voice to worship you.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Romans Challenge – Day 9– Romans 9  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

³⁰ What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; ³¹ but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. ³² Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. ³³ As it is written:

“See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame. (Romans 9:30-33)

It is very important that we be good receivers because God is a great giver. God’s intent is to always give, to give abundantly. So there needs to be good receiver to receive those blessings. There are a lot of God’s blessings that we passively receive, blessings such as life itself which is a gift from God. Also, there are blessings that we must willfully receive, blessings such as salvation in the name of Jesus.

We notice that all the great personages of the Bible were people of faith and of humility. Which comes first, their faith or their humility? Was it because of their faith in God that they were able to develop profound humility or was it because of their deep humility that they develop great faith and absolute trust in God?

The people of Israel because they sought their own righteousness through works did not get it, and could not get it. Since God will allow no one to boast about their salvation. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:9).”

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Romans Challenge – Day 10 – Romans 10  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

⁹ If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. ¹¹ As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.”^{[e] 12} For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, ¹³ for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”^[f]. (Romans 10:9-13)

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)”

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in^[a] Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23).”

 ^“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8-9)”

³¹ They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household (Acts 16:31).”

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Romans Challenge – Day 11 – Romans 11  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and^[i] knowledge of God!
 How unsearchable his judgments,
 and his paths beyond tracing out!
³⁴ “Who has known the mind of the Lord?
 Or who has been his counselor?”^[j]
35 “Who has ever given to God,
 that God should repay them?”^[k]
36 For from him and through him and for him are all things.
 To him be the glory forever! Amen. (Romans 11:33-36)

Many times during a complicated trip, I have wondered how people lived, even a few decades ago, without cellphone, GPS, and the Internet. Most people will never know how a cellphone, or the GPS system, or the Internet works. It is not important or possible for them to know, but surely their lack of understanding does not keep them from enjoying the benefits of these technologies.

It is not necessary for us to understand everything that God is doing in our lives, in our churches, in our communities, and in our countries. But we can rest assured that God is in charge and he knows what he is doing. Apostle Paul cried out, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and^[i] knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! (v. 33)”

Why God chose us will always stay a great mystery. God is a loving, merciful and just God. His love for humanity is so profound that he sent his son to die on a cross for us. And yet, a lot of people are blinded to that truth, they live their lives trying to do works to please God, while all they need is to put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We belong to God as verse 36 says: “For him and through him and for him are all things. To him be glory forever! Amen.”

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Romans Challenge – Day 12 – Romans 12  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. ² Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1-2)

In our time many Christians, especially the youths, equate worship to the music played in the church service. However worship is more than the music, it is more than singing. Worship is a disposition of the soul which totally surrenders itself to God.  The Lord Jesus tells us that God is seeking for true worshipers, “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks (John 4:23)”. 

We are called to be true worshipers because this is what God desires. How does one become one? We become true worshipers by offering true and proper worship to God. Romans 12:1 tells us, it is by offering ourselves fully to the Lord that we become true worshipers. “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship (v. 1).

True worship is a lifestyle, not something we do only on Sundays or in church. And since the Lord is always present with us, our worship then is an ongoing experience of his presence. We develop a new mindset, a mindset which is not self-centered but centered on God. Everything we do, we do it for the glory of God. And we can sing with conviction “Mon coeur, mon corps, mon ame, ne m’appartiennent plus. Ton amour les reclame, ils sont a toi Seigneur.”

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Romans Challenge – Day 13 – Romans 13  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

⁸ Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. ⁹ The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,”^[a] and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”^{[b] 10} Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. (Romans 13:8-10)

Congratulations to the Newly Baptized of Maranatha Grace Church!!!

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Romans Challenge – Day 14 – Romans 14  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

⁵ One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. ⁶ Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. ⁷ For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. ⁸ If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. ⁹ For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. (Romans 14:5-9)

The Bible does not compromise, it calls sin, sin. Even when it looks into the lives of faith heroes such as Abraham and Moses, the Bible never hesitates to expose their sin when these heroes fail to uphold God’s standard. Christians spend a lot of times discussing what is sin and what is not sin. Pastors spend a lot times preaching about sin. But is all the talking about sin necessary?

Romans 14 shows us the only two times when we probably are not sure about committing a sin or not regarding our actions. In regard to food that can be eaten or not because of religious concerns, the word of God tells us not burden ourselves. The same is true about religious observances of days.  Our actions whether to observe a special day, or to eat a certain food should be based on faith and love.

Our lives are interconnected. We live for ourselves, but we also live for the Lord. We die for ourselves, but we also die for the Lord. So we must live each moment with the desire of loving and glorifying God. We show our love for God by loving our brothers and sisters in Christ, by showing consideration for those who have weaker faith than ourselves. In this matter our directive should be, “do not to cause anyone to stumble.”

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Romans Challenge – Day 15 – Romans 15  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. ² Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. ³ For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.”^{[a] 4} For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.⁵ May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, ⁶ so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 15:1-6)

Neglect to go to church shows a lack of understanding of what really happens when people come together of one accord in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. King David says in Psalm 133, “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity! … For there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.”  There are some special blessings that we would get only if we are in church, only if we are in the midst of God’s people.

Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up (v. 2). We are people builders, we are lives changers. We need to come together intentionally to heal one another, to bless one another. We come together to give. For a lot of us, we don’t have the strength to impact people at distance, we need to be close by in order for us to have an effect. So when we are together our minds should focus in helping each other.

There is a time for personal prayer, but when we come together our prayers should turn outward as the church of Jerusalem did. As they prayed, the place where they were gathered shook (Acts 4:31). We will see the same results that they got when we pray the same way that they prayed. With one mind and one voice we need to glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (v. 6).

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

We have reached the end of the Book of Romans Challenge, tomorrow August 17, we start the Book of James Challenge.

Book of Romans Challenge – Day 16 – Romans 16  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon^[a][b] of the church in Cenchreae. ² I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me.

³ Greet Priscilla^[c] and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus. ⁴ They risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them.

⁵ Greet also the church that meets at their house.

⁹ Greet Urbanus, our co-worker in Christ, and my dear friend Stachys.

¹³ Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother, who has been a mother to me, too.

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¹⁶ Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ send greetings. (Romans 16:1-16)

This last chapter of our Book of Romans Challenge, Romans 16, forces me to ask of myself a very important question. How many friends in the Lord do I have? How many mothers in the church that I can say,” they have been a mother to me.”  What about you? How many friends in the Lord do you have? Do you have co-workers in Christ Jesus, who can risk their lives for you and for whom you can risk your life? It is no hazard that Paul was so successful in his ministry, he had friends. Do you have friends?

Maybe it is time for us to get busy asking the Lord for friends. We should not try to do our Christian works as a lone ranger. Paul certainly had Jesus as a friend, but he also was able to count on Phoebe, Priscilla and Aquila, Urbanus, Stachys and etc… What a blessing? We need friends. We have no excuse not to make the necessary sacrifices to develop some real friendships in the Lord. It is time for us to get busy.

May the Lord richly bless you!